SilverlightShow: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications Comments

Re: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

TauseefKhan — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:38:00 GMT

NO,NOT AT ALL,DOES NOT MAKE A SENSE , JUST TO SHOW CHILD WINDOWS I ADOPT PRISM INTO MY APPLICATION, FAILED.PURPOSE SOMETHING SIMILAR WHICH IS WITHOUT PRISM .

Re: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

DubiMartin — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:10:47 GMT

Very useful article! Thank you very much!

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

Dipen — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:23:30 GMT

From my view simple open the Childwindow from CodeBehind and be happy. There is no hard rule you cannot do that using MVVM.

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

Brent — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:46:40 GMT

Jay, the Coded UI testing system in VS2010 will have support for Silverlight app testing (it's on their roadmap). Until then, Telerik's is the best I've found, too.

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

jay — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:25:42 GMT

HI,

I am QA tester, and I having problems finding a tool for automating test scripts for a Silverlight app.

The closest I've found is WebUii by Terelik; however, their tool cannot recognize Chilhwindows; it only recognizes elements that are copied into the visual tree.

Question: does anyone know of any other tool that I can use for QA automation?

Really appreciate your help.

tks

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

sacha barber (C# MVP) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:57:46 GMT

I did something simliar for WPF a long time ago in my own MVVM framework for WPF : http://cinch.codeplex.com/

And more recently I wrote one (yesterday as I have only just started looking into SL again, I prefer WPF proper) which deals with ChildWindow and also how to show it Modally.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/SL4FileUploadAnd_SL4_MVVM.aspx

Mine does not use Unity for SL (though the WPF one was DId in using Unity), but it does offer:

1. Taking any object as a DataContext for the ChildWindow

2. Callbacks for Dialogresult

3. Modeless / Modal support

4. Unit test version of the service

Love to know what you think

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

Imran — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:43:03 GMT

The main reason for using MVVM model is to separate UI from Logic and in all instances I would say opening/closing an ChildWindow is UI work than logic and I have to agree with jsp, I have no idea why people want to do everything in ViewModel and sometimes even stretching the ViewModel to support UI operations, which I don't' agree to. I use a simple distinction while dealing with what should be taken to ViewModel and what should be left in code behind, if some operation that can't be databoud and would require it to work on the UI thread then I leave it in code behind.

I am not saying this lightly, I have recently struggled with the same problem where error messages are generated in VM and I had to display them in ChildWindow, and I know how much painful it can get.

Excellent post btw, I don't normally rely on Prism, sometimes it feels too heavy for simple applications.

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

Andrea Boschin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:41:10 GMT

@jsp3536: I do not think the only reason to use MVVM is to write unit test against your ViewModels. This is for sure a big advantage of the pattern but I think the other big advantage is enabling designers to manipulate the user interface without having to know anything about the logic. Opening a ChildWindow from the codebehind violate both these constraints: You need to have designers capable of understanding the code in the codebehind and you are writing some code you will never test.

I agree, there is some cases where writing code in the codebehind is required, and with Silverlight these cases are not unusual, but trying to avoid the use of the codebehind is a must everytime it is possible. IMHO.

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

jsp3536 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:54:33 GMT

I am not sure why people have problems using the code behind in the MVVM applications. The pattern never states you cannot use the code behind. Opening a child window is a view specific operation which I think is perfectly acceptable to be in the code behind. I think people waste a lot of time trying not to write any code in the code behind. I think the important thing to remember is the whole reason to use the MVVM pattern is so you can write unit tests against theViewModel.

RE: A ChildWindow management service for MVVM applications

Tom — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:08:51 GMT

Excellent